Russia: The New Pay-TV Frontier

The Russian market is still far from realising its full pay-TV potential, but our research indicates strong growth across all pay-TV platforms. Broadband service providers that have launched IPTV (or are in the test phase) are seeking additional sources of cash, and are considering IPTV either as an ARPU booster or a competitive tool to win more broadband users. So in Russia, IPTV is still perceived more as a broadband - rather than a TV or media - application. Indeed, in comparison with other European IPTV providers we do not see much novelty in terms of Russian IPTV operators' initial IPTV strategies. Overall, the core growth in IPTV will come from subscribers who are already 'connected' but do not have pay-TV services.

While subscriber growth will come over the short term, significant revenue growth will not come as fast as operators expect. Most operators are providing typical basic market-entry promotional bundles, which do bring in subscribers - but not extra cash. Also, we do not expect to see massive migrations of cable or satellite consumers to IPTV, at least in the short term. However, in the long term - assuming that service launches go well and that the content offered is good - we do see IPTV as a valid long-term threat to cable and (to a lesser extent) the only satellite platform in Russia, NTV-Plus. The evidence for this is an increasingly competitive pay-TV market in Moscow.

A fast-growing economy and large population make the Russian pay-TV market one of the most underexploited in the world. Massive Russian capital/oil money transfer investments in telecoms infrastructure and a strong presence of foreign technology suppliers suggest that the size of the country's media and telecom market will increase significantly over the short term. In addition, Russia's own incumbent pay-TV players are gearing up for increased pay-TV competition over the next five years. Cable companies are beginning to consolidate, while Russia's only satellite operator, NTV-Plus, is introducing HD-backed premium packages to address multiple platform competition. Russians are consuming more pay-TV, and their expectations in terms of channels and content are also increasing. And while today most cable companies cannot offer the premium pay-TV package, the growth of the Russian middle class will drive demand and most likely boost the Russian pay-TV market over the long term. Under this scenario, we expect Russia to be one of the fastest growing emerging pay-TV markets in the world.